Trip Report DiveSergeant Trip Report- Living The Dream Divers and their Ocean Cabanas

[divesergeant]

See if you can get out to Northwest Point if the current allows. There always seem to be a few Green Morays there.

I’ll ask tomorrow. We‘ve been up near here a few times this trip, today at Orange Canyon. I’m hoping to do one of the dives just offshore from our condo. Obviously, from a boat as Ocean Cabanas does not yet have their dock in!

 

[Doctorfish]

There is a specific site called "Northwest Point".
It's the last wall dive site on the West Wall heading north.

Often current but if it's diveable, IMO, best site on the West side.

 

[divesergeant]

There is a specific site called "Northwest Point".
It's the last wall dive site on the West Wall heading north.

Often current but if it's diveable, IMO, best site on the West side.

Thanks! We’ll try to get them to head up there.

I was thinking that northwest point was geographical, not site specific!

 

[deeper thoughts]

Do they take you to the North wall?
Ghost mountain is an amazing dive!

 

[divesergeant]

LAst day of diving, and we went north. Just four divers and they asked if we were up for a boat ride. Hell yes! We’re from the Great Lake State, you know, where four out of five great lakes prefer Michigan.

So north we headed around the N/W point. The plan was to dive Ghost Mountain. Of course, there was only one other boat diving up there and the swine were at Ghost Mountain.

We ended up doing Black Forest and Lemon Drop.

Black Forest showed us a reef shark who shadowed us for much of the dive almost out of sight below us. Near the end of the dive there was a larhe female loggerhead taking a mid-morning nap. We kept our distance and let her sleep.

Lemon Drop was a nice final dive for us. Several nurse sharks made appearances and at the turn around point a masked hamlet was happy to display itself. At the end of the dive an ocean triggerfish came by and stopped at a cleaning station. They always seem to just swim past a distance away and not stick around. This one stayed put for several minutes before I headed ap, and after my ascent and five minutes of hanging around at 15-20 feet it was still there when I re-boarded the boat.


All in all, Living The Dream has hit a home run. Both their dive op and the cabanas are wonderful.

The Dive Op;
Large, well designed and well maintained boats, and wonderful crew make the diving easy. The dives are always Cayman good, bit the dive staff makes the experience even better. For those divers who might not be as spry as they once were, the valet diving is the way to go. Sit on a bench at the stern, they bring your gear to you. You don your kit and step into the water. Post dive, if you can’t do the ladder, take your stuff off and hand it to them, then climb the ladder and let them shlep your gear.


The Ocean Cabanas:
We were in the upper floor, seaside 2 bedroom unit.

The place is brand new and very nicely designed. As a bonus for us, they do not do daily maid service. We find daily service intrusive and prefer to not have it. The night time security however is nice to have. Francis was on-site each nioght. He is friendly and helpful. While he is contract security, he cared that we were having a nice time.

The in room WiFi is fast. We tested it around the property and our room-specific connection worked all around the common lounge areas and pool.

They built with an eye to having an dive shop on site as well. There is a compressor room for tanks. They bought an already-quiet compressor and put it into a well insulated room. The result is that they can fill tanks and it is not disturbing.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Feel free to PM me if you have specific questions about either the dive op or the cabanas.

 

[scubadada]

Hi @divesergeant

How were the corals? Did you see any evidence of SCTLD?

 

[divesergeant]

Sadly, there was a noticeable amount of SCTLD. Yet another thing the coral has to overcome. Between warming waters, bleaching, humans and now this, it is troubling.

We overheard talk that in some areas about 30% of the coral shows signs. We didn’t personally see that degree, but any is too much.

 

[Skeptic14]

@divesergeant Thanks for the report. The LTD cabanas are very enticing, we're headed to GC later this year and need beach front unfortunately for the non-divers, otherwise for strictly diving those look great and are right on the mini-wall it seems.

Of the west and north sites which were your favorite? The few west sites I've done seemed to have noticeably more marine life than the north, but my sample size isn't great. Getting excited to return!

 

[divesergeant]

North dives are always great, but we only did the two this trip.

On the west we enjoyed them all, but some stood out.

Killer Pilar, Killer Puffer and Aquarium were great for shallower dives with tons of small stuff and an abundance of fish.

La Mesa had a whole ton of fish but we didn’t see too much as far as macro stuff.

Orange Canyon was spectacular both times we dived it. If you like wall dives with swim throughs Trinity Caves and Big Tunnels will be nice. They’re beautiful but with a group you can’t just park yourself there and take it all in.

Basically, though, all the dives were enjoyable both for the dives them selves and the dive op we were with.

DS

 

[Jeff in SD]

The other day I mentioned to Liz, one of the owners, that I like diving to the south. Well guess what? We loaded on the boat and headed that way to accommodate my request. We did Eagle Ray Rock and Armchair. Both were wonderful and enjoyable. There was a bit of a current washing past and the swaying sea fans are hypnotizing.

Today, we started at Little Tunnels, a turtle made an appearance and we noted that we seem to be seeing more hogfish than in the past. On the other hand, we’ve seen just one eel (not counting the ubiquitous garden eels!).

Today’s second dive was at Killer Puffer. wow, I could do this dive everyday and be happy. It is a fairly shallow dive with sandy patches with clumps of coral all about.

Speaking of coral, there was an abundance of pilar coral here with their polyps extended during the daytime. It was cool to see.

And, speaking again of coral, from what we hear maybe 30% or so of the coral is infected with the stony coral disease right now. Hopefully the reef can adapt and overcome this threat.

On Killer Puffer dive we saw tons of small stuff like jawfish, cleaner shrimp, arrow crabs as well as larger stuff like puffers and grouper and snapper.

A note on lionfish. We’ve been seeing one to three per day. We understand that at greater depth they are much more numerous. While we don’t see to many at rec depths, it sure would be nice to be able to kill them. I imagine the DoE has their reasons to disallow spears (except for the ones they issue and maintain) but dang! I understand if they are worried about someone damaging the reef trying to ‘get a shot’, but really? In my limited experience, lionfish shooters are more conscious of the reef than many photographers.

Enough for now, might be an early dinner and bedtime night.

Things may have changed, but in 2017 my wife & I did the PADI Lionfish Culling course and then went on a special lionfish trip with Ambassador Divers. We had a wonderful time. Siggy was a great guide.

We've really enjoyed Gary & Liz & the Living the Dream crew. As far as I know, they don't offer the required course or the lionfish trips. They didn't in 2017, which is why we did that part of our trip with Ambassador Divers.